t 29 ] 



CHAPTER V. 



THE WILD FOWL OF THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



The birds of passage transmigrating come 

 Unnumbered colonies of foreign wing 

 At Nature's summons 



— Mallkt. 



Vl/ILD fowl begin to put in an appearance in the Yangtze estuary generally towards the 

 ^ ' end of October, that is those of the duck tribe, for the arrival of the swans and geese 

 is always much later, and would seem to be entirely dependent upon the climatic conditions 

 in the Far North. 



In common with all the other varieties of birds which participate in the Great Asian 

 migration scheme the wild fowl that visit China breed in the early summer months in that 

 dreary, swampy, treeless, moss-grown waste known as the Tundra, which stretches from the 

 Gulf of Obi on the west to Behring's straits on the East, through 1 10 meridians of longitude, 

 its Northern limit being bounded by the Arctic Ocean. During the open Arctic Season in the 

 countless tributaries of the great rivers and in the innumerable lagoons which characterize 

 that region wild fowl find the food in which they delight, and it is only when those food 

 supplies are cut off, as they are when the ground becomes hidden in frozen snow and the 

 water-ways covered with ice, that the instinct of self-preservation, chief amongst known 

 causes, impels migration to a kinder climate with its more easily obtainable food. 



The passage of most migrants is steady from North to South, i.e., continually 

 progressive towards the limit of the migration. There would, however, appear to be obvious 

 modifications of this movement in North China, for birds will be found to be in numbers 

 at a certain place at a certain distance South one day only to be discovered at a similar 

 distance North on another: a fairly conclusive proof that their movements are largely 

 influenced by the temperature. Cold weather will drive the birds in a southerly direction, 

 a warm break will incline them again to the northward. Our inland waters testify to this, 

 for one day they may be literally black with fowl and the next as bare as the proverbial 

 billiard ball. 



The line flight of wild fowl is nothing like so extended as in the cases of many other 

 migrants. It is placed by Mr. Dixon in his "Migrations of Birds" in the "moderate range," 

 that is a range of 3,000 to 5,000 miles. But the Corncrake and the Cuckoo fly from 6,ooo to 

 7,000 miles, whilst among the birds of the most extended ascertained flight are the whimbrel, 

 the curlew and the well-known Asiatic Golden Plover which traverse between 7,000 and 

 10,000 miles. This mileage is, of course, approximate, and represents a course almost due 

 North and South: but few, if any species, travel so direct, so that the actual distances 



